Innovation Profs - 9/16/2025

Your weekly guide to generative AI tools and news

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Innovation Profs
September 16, 2025

Latest Gen AI News

Gemini Is the Top Free iPhone App, and This 'Bananas' AI Image Model Is Why

Just yesterday Google’s Gemini iOS app surpassed ChatGPT as the top free iPhone app, likely due to the popularity of Nano Banana, Gemini’s new image generation and editing tool. Overall, ChatGPT is still dominating Gemini in the category of LLM usage (over 60% of the market share of LLM usage compared to around 13% for Gemini), but this change in the app store rankings marks an important shift for Google as they continue to roll out new tools and features through their AI Studio.

What do people actually use ChatGPT for? OpenAI provides some numbers.

Also yesterday, a team of OpenAI researchers along with Harvard economist David Denning released “How People Use ChatGPT” through the National Bureau of Economic Research. Some highlights:

  • ChatGPT usage continues to grow, with over current 700 million users, which accounts for “nearly 10% of the world’s adult population”;

  • the average daily message volume per individual long-term user has plateaued over the past three months;

  • 46% of the users in a large sample of ChatGPT users who revealed their age were between 18 and 25 years old;

  • weekly active users have shifted from being predominantly male to a slight majority for female users;

  • there has been a shift in the use of ChatGPT for non-work tasks from 53% of all messages in June 2024 to over 72% of messages in June 2025.

You can access the full study here.

Claude can now edit and create files, including Excel spreadsheets

The race among LLM giants to embed their tools into productivity workflows has a new competitor, as Claude can now be used “to create and edit Excel spreadsheets, documents, PowerPoint slide decks and PDFs.” This feature is currently only available to Claude users with a Max, Team, or Enterprise plan.

Quick Hits

OpenAI is backing a new animated feature film 'made largely with AI' to prove it can make films 'faster and cheaper' than Hollywood

The AI firm hopes that if Critterz is a hit, it will speed up Hollywood's embrace of AI technology.

www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/openai-is-backing-a-new-animated-feature-film-made-largely-with-ai-to-prove-it-can-make-films-faster-and-cheaper-than-hollywood

These fields could see job cuts because of artificial intelligence, federal data says

Artificial intelligence has some excited and others scared, as the rapidly-evolving technology impacts the job market.

www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/artificial-intelligence-job-market

Google's new method makes LLMs faster and more powerful, and cheaper too

Google Research has developed a new method that could make running large language models cheaper and faster. Here's what it has done.

www.neowin.net/news/googles-new-method-makes-llms-faster-and-more-powerful-and-cheaper-too

An Essay Contest Winner Used A.I. Should She Return the $1,000 Award?

What happened should be taken as a wake-up call, rather than a crime scene.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/magazine/essay-contest-ai-ethics.html

AI Is Changing the Structure of Consulting Firms

AI is transforming consulting by making it possible to automate tasks traditionally handled by junior consultants such as research, modelling, and analysis.

hbr.org/2025/09/ai-is-changing-the-structure-of-consulting-firms

K2 Think arrives from UAE as 'world’s fastest open-source AI model'

venturebeat.com/ai/k2-think-arrives-from-uae-as-worlds-fastest-open-source-ai-model

AI will never be a shortcut to wisdom

Real understanding, argues thought leader Jeff DeGraff, doesn’t come from outputs — it comes from practice.

bigthink.com/business/ai-will-never-be-a-shortcut-to-wisdom

AI is redefining university research: here's how

Study and research are being supercharged by AI, which has heralded a new age of industrial-scale theoretical exploration.

www.techradar.com/ai-platforms-assistants/ai-is-redefining-university-research-heres-how

Writing a Good AI Image Prompt Isn't Hard, but You Need These Essential Elements

I have spent too much time crafting the perfect AI prompt. Here's everything I've learned reviewing AI image generators.

www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/writing-a-good-ai-image-prompt-isnt-hard-but-you-need-these-essential-elements

Tool of the week: Codex

OpenAI has rolled out GPT-5-Codex, a new version of GPT-5 optimized specifically for agentic coding. It’s designed to be faster, more reliable, and better able to work independently or in collaboration.

In tests, Codex ran multi-hour continuous sessions on large tasks, doing iteration and test-fixing independently.

This update positions Codex as a much more mature, capable coding partner: able to take on more of the heavy lifting in software engineering workflows, better context awareness across environments, improved tooling, and safer behavior.

AI-generated image of the week

We decided to jump on the Nano Banana 3D figurine trend. 

Prompt: Create a 1/7 scale commercialized figurine of the character in the picture, in a realistic style, in a real environment. The figurine is placed on a computer desk. The figurine has a round transparent acrylic base. The content on the computer screen is a 3D modeling process of this figurine. Next to the computer screen is a toy packaging box, designed in a style reminiscent of high-quality collectible figures, printed with original artwork. The packaging features two-dimensional flat illustrations of the figurine.

What we found

Anthropic released the first-ever comprehensive analysis of real AI usage across 150+ countries and all 50 US states. It includes an interactive map so users can explore the data.

Iowa ranks 43rd out of 51 states (plus D.C.) in Claude usage. The most common usage in Iowa is to "edit and improve existing written content and documents."